Privacy
This describes what the software actually does. Most of it is generated from the same code that does it, so it cannot quietly stop being true.
Not finished
Whoever runs this deployment has not yet said who they are, where they are, or how to reach them. Until they do, the parts of this page marked below are blank — which is the honest state of it, and is why npm run check:legal fails.
Who holds this
- Operator.
- Church of South Texas, Inc.
- Where.
- Texas, United States
- Address.
- «TO BE FILLED IN»
- Writing about your data.
- contact@seek-first.app
What is stored, and what happens to it
Every table in this app that points at a person appears here exactly once, with what becomes of it if you leave a church and if you close your account altogether. You can see your own version of this list, with your own numbers in it, at your data once you are signed in — and export the lot.
| What | If you leave | If you close |
|---|---|---|
| The notes you wrote in a studyNotes are yours, and a study you can no longer open is not a place to leave them. Shared notes go too — the study itself stays for the others. | Removed | Removed |
| What you said in a study discussionSame reason as your notes. The discussion stays; your part of it does not. | Removed | Removed |
| Verses you have highlightedMarking a verse is between you and the text. If you belong to another church these move there with you; nobody but you could ever read them. | Stays yours | Removed |
| Verses and passages you have starredYours, for the same reason as your highlights. | Stays yours | Removed |
| Passages you bookmarkedYours, for the same reason as your highlights. | Stays yours | Removed |
| What you named each highlight colourThis was never attached to a church at all — it is your own palette. | Stays yours | Removed |
| The record of what you have readWhere you have been in Scripture is yours. It moves with you to another church if you belong to one. | Stays yours | Removed |
| Days you ticked off in this church's reading plansThe plan belongs to the church. Your progress through it does not survive leaving, though the reading itself is kept in your reading record. | Removed | Removed |
| Prayer requests you shared, and the ones you marked yourself as praying forThe most sensitive thing in the app. Your requests are deleted, and your name is taken off everyone else's — theirs stay, one praying member lighter. | Removed | Removed |
| Messages you sentRemoved the same way you can already remove one: the words and any images go, and the others in the thread see 'message removed' where it was, so their side of the conversation still makes sense. | Removed | Removed |
| Your place in each conversationYou leave the conversation. It stays for whoever else was in it. | Removed | Removed |
| Conversations you startedA conversation belongs to everyone in it, so it is not yours to delete. Once your messages are gone and you are out of it, only the record that somebody started it remains. | Kept, without your name | Kept, without your name |
| People you blocked, and anyone who blocked youA block only means anything between two people in the same church. | Removed | Removed |
| Needs you asked for and help you offeredAn offer you are no longer here to keep is worse than no offer. | Removed | Removed |
| Your replies to other people's needs and offersSame reason. The need itself stays for the church to answer. | Removed | Removed |
| What you said you were coming to, and what you said you would bringRemoved from gatherings that have not happened yet and from ones that have — a head count for a meal you will not be at is just wrong. | Removed | Removed |
| Your home, if the church has met thereYour address is yours. A place that is your home comes out of the church's list so nobody schedules there again, while each gathering keeps its own record of where it met, because that evening did happen. Places that are not your home stay — they are the church's, and only the note of who first added them stops resolving to a name. | Removed | Removed |
| Things you put on a gathering's agendaAnything you offered for a gathering still to come is withdrawn. The agenda of a gathering that already happened is the church's record of that evening, so it stays — with your name no longer resolving, it reads 'A member'. | Kept, without your name | Kept, without your name |
| Gifts you saw in others, and the ones they saw in youRecognition of a gift is something a particular body says about a particular member. It does not travel, and it should not outlast the membership. | Removed | Removed |
| Affirmations for an office — given and receivedRecognition is by this body, of this member. Both directions go, so a future recognition starts from a fresh conversation. | Removed | Removed |
| Qualification reviews you took part inThese carry written notes about a named person's character. They are cleared with the affirmations for the same reason. | Removed | Removed |
| Every 'amen' you gaveCounts are shown in aggregate, so one fewer changes a number and nothing else. | Removed | Removed |
| Studies you startedThe study is the church's and other people are working through it. Only the note of who opened it is cleared. | Kept, without your name | Kept, without your name |
| Teachings you preparedThe teaching is the church's — a body has been taught from it, and other people have asked questions of it. Only the note of who wrote it is cleared. | Kept, without your name | Kept, without your name |
| Questions you raised while a teaching was being taughtA question put to a text belongs to the text more than to the asker — it is kept so that it can surface beside that verse years later, which is the whole reason this app keeps questions instead of printing them. Your name comes off it. | Kept, without your name | Kept, without your name |
| The notes you wrote while a teaching was taughtA note is yours and nobody else could ever read it. A teaching you can no longer open is not a place to leave them. | Removed | Removed |
| Slides, pictures and film you put into a teachingIt is part of a teaching the church keeps, and removing it would leave a gap in the middle of something other people are still using. Only the note of who uploaded it is cleared. | Kept, without your name | Kept, without your name |
| Testimonies, words and photos you shared with the churchA testimony or a word was given to this church out loud, so it stays — without your name on it. Photos you posted are deleted outright: they are pictures of other people, shared on your word that they were happy with it, and that word leaves with you. | Kept, without your name | Kept, without your name |
| Posts you asked to be taken downThe concern outlives the person who raised it — a facilitator still has to be able to see why something was hidden. Your name comes off it. It is not in your export, because a safeguarding concern is not a thing to hand back as a receipt. | Kept, without your name | Kept, without your name |
| Things you sent to the wider network on your church's behalf, and anything you reviewed as an overseerA sentence sent to the other churches was your church speaking, not you — it stays, with your name off it. Your church can withdraw any of them from its listing page at any time, and doing that takes it off the public pages at once. | Kept, without your name | Kept, without your name |
| Times you were sent from a gathering, and what you came back and saidBeing sent was something the whole gathering heard, and what you said when you came back was said to them. It stays as part of that evening, with your name taken off it. | Kept, without your name | Kept, without your name |
| Reading plans you made for the churchOther members are partway through them. Deleting a plan under somebody would be the unkinder option. | Kept, without your name | Kept, without your name |
| Your membership — role, office, household, address, what you can offerThis is the thing you are ending. Any office you hold is stepped down first. | Removed | Removed |
| Devices signed up for notificationsA device belongs to you, not to a church, so leaving one church does not silence the other. | Stays yours | Removed |
| Money you have givenThis is the church's own book of account and the basis of the giving statement you can be issued. Churches in the United States are generally advised to keep contribution records for seven years, and these are kept on that basis. If you close your account, your name and email address are kept beside them so the statement can still be written — everything else about you goes. | Kept by the church | Kept by the church |
| Money you paid out, or approved paying out, as a stewardOpen books only mean something if they add up and if it is clear who authorised what. Removing one side of a dual-control record would break the very thing it exists to prove. | Kept by the church | Kept by the church |
| The audit trail of things you did as a steward or facilitatorAn audit trail that can be edited by the person it is about is not an audit trail. | Kept by the church | Kept by the church |
| Invitations you sent, and the one you came in onInvitations you sent that nobody has taken up are revoked immediately. Ones that were accepted are how somebody else got here, so the church keeps that record. | Kept by the church | Kept by the church |
| The name and email held beside records the church has to keepWritten when you leave or close, and only if this church holds records it must keep — otherwise your name stops resolving and its own books become unreadable. It exists so the retained scrap of you is one visible row with an end date on it, rather than your name quietly living on inside a ledger. You are shown its exact contents before you confirm. | Kept by the church | Kept by the church |
| Directory listings you vetted as a Sent OneA listing that says it was checked has to be able to say who checked it. | Kept by the church | Kept by the church |
| Church plant requests you handledThe record of a church being planted belongs to the network, not to the person who answered the form. | Kept by the church | Kept by the church |
| Errors the app recorded while you were using itKept at most thirty days and then deleted automatically, whether or not anybody leaves. It holds a stack trace and a page address, not your writing. | Kept by the church | Kept by the church |
If you have never signed in
Three things on the public side of this site take your details without an account: asking a listed church about itself, joining the waitlist for a church near you, and asking for help planting one. Each stores what you typed — your name where asked, your email, and the area you named, which is turned into an approximate point so a church can be matched to it — and emails it to the people it is addressed to. It is kept until it has been dealt with, and you can ask for it to be removed at the address above.
Who else ever sees it
These are every outside service this app talks to. The list is checked against the source code: a service called from anywhere in this application that is not named here fails the build’s own checks. The ones marked only if configured are switched on by whoever runs the deployment and may not be in use at all.
Supabase
Holds the database, the sign-in system, and uploaded files.
They receive. Everything the app stores: your account, your church's records, your notes, and anything you upload.
Vercel
Runs the website itself.
They receive. Every request you make to the site, including your IP address, in the ordinary way any web host does.
Anthropic
The model behind study notes, scripture search, drafting a teaching, and the song helpers.
They receive. The passage or the notes you asked about, at the moment you ask. Not your name, and nothing it was not asked about.
Voyage AIonly if configured
Turns scripture into the numbers that make searching by meaning possible.
They receive. The words you typed into the scripture search, and the Bible text itself.
OpenAIonly if configured
An alternative provider for the same search numbers, used only if configured.
They receive. The words you typed into the scripture search.
ElevenLabsonly if configured
Generates backing tracks for songs, when a facilitator asks for one.
They receive. The song's title, key and chords. No recording of anybody.
Stripeonly if configured
Takes card payments when you give.
They receive. Your card details, which go to them directly and are never on this app's servers. This app is told only that a payment succeeded and for how much.
Resendonly if configured
Sends the app's email.
They receive. Your email address and the message being sent to you.
OpenStreetMap (Nominatim)
Turns an address into a point on a map, for the directory and for where a gathering meets.
They receive. The address or area you typed. Not your account.
API.Bible, bible-api.com, eBible and getBible
Provide the text of some translations.
They receive. Which passage is being read. Not who is reading it.
Crossway (the ESV API)only if configured
Provides the text of the ESV, when a church has that translation configured.
They receive. Which passage is being read. Not who is reading it.
Giphy and Tenoronly if configured
GIF search in messages.
They receive. What you typed into the GIF box. The request is made by this app's server, so they are never told who you are.
YouTube and Vimeoonly if configured
Play video linked into a teaching.
They receive. Your browser reaches them directly when a teaching containing a linked video is open, which means they can see that you loaded it.
GitHub
Holds the source code, and the encrypted nightly database backup.
They receive. Nothing you do in the app. The backup, which contains the database.
Google Calendar and Outlook
Only ever as a link you choose to press, to add a gathering to your own calendar.
They receive. Nothing, unless you press it — and then only that event.
Cookies
- Sign-in. Keeps you signed in. Set by Supabase when you sign in and cleared when you sign out.
- Which church. Remembers which church you were last looking at, if you belong to more than one.
- Light or dark. Remembers how you like the app to look.
That is all of them. There is no cookie banner because there is nothing here to consent to: none of these follow you anywhere.
What this app does not do
- There is no advertising, and nothing here is sold or rented to anybody.
- There are no analytics or tracking scripts following you between sites.
- Nothing in this app is used to train anybody's model. The model providers above are asked a question and answer it.
- Your messages are encrypted in the database — but facilitators of your church can read them, and every thread says so on its face. That is a rule of this app, not a secret.
- Nobody is profiled, scored, or ranked. There are no engagement metrics and no feed ordering to be gamed.
Children
Accounts are for adults. A church can mark a member as a young person, which removes them from the messaging feature entirely. If you believe a child has an account here, write to the address above and it will be removed.
Getting your data, and getting rid of it
Signed in, go to your data. You can download everything the app holds about you as one archive, leave a church, or close your account. Closing it removes the sign-in behind it too. The table above says, row by row, what survives that and why — the code follows the same table, and a test fails if it stops.
This page is a description of how the software behaves, written by the people who built it. It is not legal advice and it is not a substitute for a lawyer reading it.